The Greek Plays
Page 80
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that radiant, most sacred place.*116
antistrophe 1
Gone are your sacrifices, gone the sweet songs
of dancing choirs, and gone the festivals
where gods were worshipped all night long, in thick of darkness.
Gone are the wooden statues set with gold,
gone the Trojans holiest holy,
the moon-cakes, numbering twelve.*117
Do you even care, my lord? I feel so worried:
did you just go back to sit in heaven,
up there in the sky while Troy is ruined,
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devastated by the rush of flaming fire?
strophe 2
My darling dearest husband,
you’re dead, and wandering in the Underworld,
without the rites of washing, or a tomb.*118 Meanwhile,
I have to cross the sea,
on a swift-winged ship,
to Argos, home of horses, where the people live
in stone walls raised to heaven by the Giants.*119
Hordes of children at the gates
are crying, clinging to their mother’s necks,
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and wailing,
“Mother, the Greeks are taking me away alone, all by myself,
they’re taking me away from you! I need your face.
I’m just a little girl. They’re taking me somewhere
on their dark ship
rowing over the sea—
maybe to holy Salamis
or the Isthmus where the peak looks out
on double seas, the gate
of Pelops’ palace.”*120
antistrophe 2
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May sacred fire, the flash of lighting,
hurled with two fists, blast Menelaus’ ship
right in the midst of the oars
as it crosses the Aegean.
I can’t stop crying. He’s taking me away
to Greece to be a slave, my home is gone.
Meanwhile, she gets all the things a girl could want:
golden mirrors for the child of Zeus.
1110
May he never reach his Spartan home
or his ancestral hearth,
nor come to Pitane
with its bronze-gated temple of Athena,*121
after taking that curse of a wife,
that shame to mighty Greece,
and the cause of so much pain
by the banks of the Simois.
(Enter Talthybius and his men with the body of Astyanax on a shield.)
CHORUS: Oh, no, no, no!
New troubles, always more and always worse for Troy.
Poor women, look at this body.
1120
It is Astyanax: he’s dead.
A horrible death. The Greeks just tossed him down
like a discus from the ramparts; so they killed him.
TALTHYBIUS: The last ship, Hecuba, is set with oars,
ready to take the final spoils of Pyrrhus,*122
Achilles’ son, back to the shores of Phthia.
Neoptolemus is gone already.
He heard new trouble’s come to Peleus:
Acastus exiled him from his own land.*123
That’s why he’s gone so quick, no time to waste,
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and with him went Andromache. I wept,
I couldn’t help it, when she left her country,
when she was crying for her home, and calling
to Hector’s tomb. She begged that Pyrrhus bury
this corpse, this boy, who fell down from the walls
and lost his life: the child of your son Hector.
She also asked him not to take with him
to Peleus’ house, the place she must submit
to him as bride, this shield of bronze, which Hector
carried when he terrified the Greeks.
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“Instead of cedar coffin and stone tomb,
bury the boy on this!” she said, and begged me
to set it in your arms, to shroud the corpse
in clothes and coverings, as best you can.
She had to go; her master’s haste has robbed her
of giving burial rites to her own son.
But I myself, when you have dressed the corpse,
will bury it, then lift our oars and go.
Quick as you can, do as you have been told.
1150
But there’s one job I’ve done for you already:
I crossed the river Scamander, right there,
taking the body, and I washed his wounds.
And now I’ll go and dig the boy a grave.
You work, I work, we’ll work on this together,
then we’ll be done and row our ships back home.
HECUBA: Lay on the ground the rounded shield of Hector,
terrible sight! I can’t bear looking at it.
O, Greeks! Your weapons had more force than sense:
why did you feel afraid of this young boy?
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Strange and unnatural killing. Did you fear
he’d one day raise up fallen Troy? You’re worthless!
We were losing even then, when Hector
stood strong against your hundred thousand spears.
Now this city’s taken and we Trojans
ruined: and this tiny body frightened you!
Don’t be afraid unless you’ve got a reason.
Oh, sweetheart, what bad luck you had in death!
If you’d grown up, got married, and obtained
this godlike kingdom, and then died for it,
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your life would have been good; that’s happiness.
But as it is, you glimpsed a happy future,
but never knew it or enjoyed your birthright.
Poor boy, how horribly your own home’s walls,
the ramparts of Apollo, crushed your head
and ripped the curls your mother doted on;
she often used to kiss you there—where blood
laughs out between the broken bits of skull.
I won’t hide the horror. Your sweet hands,
so like your father’s, lie there dislocated,
broken. And your lovely mouth is dead,
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that made false promises as you tugged my dress,
saying, “Grandma, at your funeral,
I’ll cut my hair for you and bring my friends
to say goodbye and tell how much we loved you.”
You didn’t bury me, I buried you,
so young, and I’m so old: citiless, childless.
Poor little body! How I used to hold you,
and watch you as you slept: now what’s the use?
What could a poet write upon your tomb?
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“The Greeks once killed this boy because they feared him”?
That’s an epitaph to shame all Greece!
You didn’t get your father’s legacy,
but you will have his shield—to be your coffin.
O shield! You kept safe Hector’s fine strong arms,
then lost your own best guardian and protector.
How sweet to see his imprint in your handle,
his sweat left on your smooth, well-rounded rim,
dripping from Hector’s forehead when he pressed
his chin against you, laboring in war.
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(to the Chorus) Come here, bring what we’ve got, let’s try to dress
the corpse as best we can. God does not grant
the chance to make it beautiful. I’ll give you
what I have, not much. People are foolish
to trust in happiness when luck is theirs.
Fate lunges back and forth, like one struck mad,
and no one ever gets to choose good fortune.
(Hecuba’s w
omen bring out clothes to adorn the boy’s body.)
CHORUS: Here are the women, bringing from the spoils
of Troy, some ornaments for the little corpse.
HECUBA: Here, child: your grandma has some gifts for you,
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from things that once were yours—not as a prize
for winning in a horse race, nor at archery—
sports the Trojans treat with proper honor.
No: that woman that the gods abhor,
Helen, has robbed you, even of your life!
She’s killed you, and our whole house is destroyed.
CHORUS:*125 Oh, oh, oh! You touched my heart,
my heart, Astyanax! You were once a mighty prince,
in this my city.
HECUBA: I’ll dress you in the best of Trojan clothes,
the ornaments you should have worn for marriage
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to the best princess in the whole of Asia.
And shield, dear shield of Hector, you once won
so many victories, a thousand triumphs,
mother of glory, take this crown. You die
with this corpse, but live forever. Better honor you
than the weapons of that wicked, sharp Odysseus.
CHORUS: No, no, no!
Pain and lamentation! O, little boy,
the earth will take you now.
Mourn him, Mother!
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HECUBA: Ah, ah, ah!
CHORUS: Weep for the dead.
HECUBA: Oh, oh, oh!
CHORUS: Ah, your suffering goes beyond bearing.
HECUBA: I’ll bandage up your wounds for you and nurse them.
I’m a bad nurse. I cannot make you well.
Your father will look after you in Hades.
CHORUS: Beat your head, beat it,
pound at your body.
Shout: O, O, O, O!
HECUBA: Dear girls—
CHORUS: Hecuba, tell it: what do you want to say?
1240
HECUBA:
and Troy was hated more than any city.
I gave them sacrifices; it was pointless.
But if god hadn’t overturned our world,*127
we’d be invisible; no bard would sing
our story to the future generations.
Well, go, bury the corpse in his poor grave.
He has the garlands that the dead should have.
I think it matters little to the dead,
whether they get riches in the grave.
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This is an empty gesture of the living.
CHORUS: O, O, O!
Poor mother! And poor baby! Such great hopes
you had for life, all mangled and ripped up.
Child, you were born with so much wealth,
such noble birth, but you died such a terrible death.
(Enter Talthybius, accompanied by soldiers.)
But what is this? Who are these people on the citadel,
their hands afire with burning torches,
scooping the air like oars?
It looks as if there’s more bad news for Troy.
1260
TALTHYBIUS: Captains, you have orders to set light
to Priam’s city here: don’t let the flame
sit idle in your hands, but fire, fire, fire!
Once we’ve razed Ilium, burned it to the ground,
we’ll go home safe and sound away from Troy.
Now here’s the other side of my instructions:
you women, Trojan daughters, when the generals
give the signal with the trumpet, echoing high,
go to the ships, where you’ll be taken off.
(to Hecuba) You, too, old woman—poor unlucky thing!
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go with these men; they’ll take you to Odysseus,
whose exiled slave the ballot says you are.
HECUBA: I’m finished, then. It’s over now, the end,
the final terminus of all my sorrow.
I’m leaving home; my city’s set on fire.
Up, you old feet, and hurry the best you can:
let me pay my respects to wretched Troy.
Troy, once the flower of Asia, redolent
with glory, soon you’ll lose your famous name.
They’re burning you, and taking us away
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as slaves. O gods! But why call on the gods?
They didn’t listen last time they were called.
Come then, let’s rush into the flames! It’s best
for me to die here, in my burning home.
TALTHYBIUS: Poor woman, you’ve gone crazy from your troubles.
But men, take her away; do not hold back.
Give her to Odysseus as his prize.
strophe 1
HECUBA:*128 Ruin!
Zeus, Lord of Phrygia,
father of the Dardan race,*129
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do you see our suffering? We don’t deserve this!
CHORUS: He has seen it all; and yet our mighty city
is no city now; it’s ruined, and Troy does not exist.
antistrophe 1
HECUBA: Disaster!
Troy shines bright,
the buildings of our citadel are all ablaze with flame,
the city and the summits of our walls.
CHORUS: Like smoke on the wing of the wind,
our land falls to the spear, and now it’s gone.
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Buildings are set alight with raging flame
and enemy spears.
HECUBA: My country, that fed and raised my children!
strophe 2
CHORUS: Ah, ah, ah!
HECUBA: Children listen, hear your mother’s cry!
CHORUS: You’re calling lamentations to the dead.
HECUBA: (kneeling) I lay my old limbs down upon the ground
and beat the earth with my two fists.
CHORUS: (kneeling) I, too, in turn, will kneel upon the earth
and call to my poor husband
in the earth below.
(Talthybius’ men begin to lay hands on Hecuba and the Chorus members.)
HECUBA: They’re taking us away!
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CHORUS: It’s agony. Tell it loud! Agony!
HECUBA: Taking us to a house of slavery.
CHORUS: Away from our family home.
HECUBA: Oh, Priam, Priam,
you had no grave, you died without a friend,
and you don’t know my ruin.
CHORUS: Black death closed his eyes,
holy in unholy slaughter.*130
antistrophe 2
HECUBA: O, temples of the gods, O my dear city!
CHORUS: O, dear city!
HECUBA: Ruin of fire and force of spear possessed you.
CHORUS: So soon, you’ll lose your name and fall to our dear earth.
1320
HECUBA: Like smoke winging up to the sky, the dust
will soon blind me to my own home.
CHORUS: The name of the country will be lost. And everything,
everything everywhere gone,
and poor Troy is no more.
(Loud crashing noises are heard offstage.)
HECUBA: Did you hear, do you know what it is?
CHORUS: It’s the crash of the towers.
HECUBA: Earthquake, earthquake everywhere!
CHORUS: Waves engulf the town.
HECUBA: O, o, o! My poor old shaking legs,
carry me off
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to my day of slavery.
CHORUS: Weep for our city! But we have to go
onto the ships of the Greeks.
(All leave the stage.)
* * *
*1 Phoebus is another name for Apollo. Poseidon and Apollo built Troy’s city walls together, at the request of the then king, Laomedon. Laomedon failed to keep his promise to reward the gods, and they
sacked the city for the first time. The Trojan War thus marks the second destruction of the city.
*2 Phrygia was a region in Anatolia, modern Turkey, of which Troy was one of the most important cities.
*3 A Greek soldier, who was inspired by Athena in a dream to build the Trojan Horse.
*4 Lines 13–14 are thought to be an “interpolation,” a later addition to the text by a commentator or perhaps an actor, not written by Euripides.
*5 Priam was slaughtered by Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, in the temple of Zeus.
*6 By “Asian” is meant Phrygian.
*7 Achaean=Greek.
*8 Hera was hostile to Troy, which she saw as the source of several of her husband Zeus’ infidelities (such as his affair with Ganymede, prince of Troy, who became cup-bearer to the gods).
*9 Scamander is the river of Troy.
*10 Arcadia and Thessaly are regions of Greece. Theseus is the legendary founder of Athens.
*11 The usual myth is that Tyndareus’ wife, Leda, was seduced or raped by Zeus (who had taken on the form of a swan), and she then gave birth to an egg, from which came Helen and her sister, Clytemnestra.
*12 Agamemnon, king of Argos, is the husband of Clytemnestra, sister of Helen. He took Cassandra as his concubine after the Trojan War, which was an “impiety” because she was supposed to have been left a virgin after Apollo could not have her.
*13 Poseidon and Zeus are brothers.
*14 Athena was on the side of the Greeks in the Trojan War because Paris (prince of Troy) had chosen Aphrodite over her and Hera as the goddess to whom he would give the golden apple.
*15 Ilium is an alternative name for Troy, from its legendary founder, Ilus.
*16 Euboea is the long island strip on the eastern side of Greece.
*17 All places in Greece, on the way from Troy.
*18 Zeus carries the thunderbolt, which is sometimes borrowed by Athena.
*19 This is a “monody,” a song sung by a single actor. Hecuba’s meter until she starts speaking to Cassandra is lyric, not the regular speaking meter of iambics; I have echoed this only by making the lines irregular in length. In the original performance, the actor would have sung these lines, while dancing in expression of Hecuba’s grief.
*20 The image is of a ship’s sail, which looks round when it is filled out with a strong breeze but flat when the wind goes down. There is a secondary suggestion of a mother’s belly, once fertile, now empty. Metaphors from ships continue in the passage; the literal ships of the Greeks are met by the metaphorical ships of Hecuba’s hopes, and of Troy, which are wrecked.
*21 I.e. ropes made from the papyrus plant.